The late-Ayutthaya ordination hall on Khlong Bangkok Noi whose base curves in the junk-hull line — and, standing in front of it, a modern hall in the form of a royal swan barge that is neither a junk nor a monument.
วัดชลอ · Wat Chalo
| Official name | วัดชลอ — Wat Chalo |
|---|---|
| Where | Wat Chalo, Bang Kruai, Nonthaburi |
| Royal temple class | Not established from an official register. |
| Monastic order | Maha Nikaya (มหานิกาย) |
| Ancient monument | Registered national ancient monument ประกาศกรมศิลปากร เรื่อง ขึ้นทะเบียนโบราณสถาน ราชกิจจานุเบกษา เล่ม ๙๖ ตอนที่ ๙๗ ฉบับพิเศษ หน้า ๕ ๑๖ มิถุนายน ๒๕๒๒ ลงนามโดย ไพรัช ชุติกุล รองอธิบดี รักษาราชการแทนอธิบดีกรมศิลปากร ประกาศ ณ วันที่ ๑๖ พฤษภาคม ๒๕๒๒ Read from the scan the Fine Arts Department serves from its own file store. The announcement names one thing and one thing only — พระอุโบสถวัดชลอ — with monument land of about ๑ งาน ๙๗ ตารางวา, roughly 788 square metres, which is a plot around a single building rather than a monastery precinct. The department's register codes it REG_STATUS 5, registered with the land boundary delimited, and a search of the register returns no second entry for this monastery. Note the two dates and do not merge them: signed 16 May, published 16 June. |
| Coordinates | 13.806343, 100.476276 Fine Arts Department, national monument register no. 0000213, point geometry from the department's own GIS (WGS84); the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre's figure sits about five metres away |
Thai temple histories mix two different kinds of statement, and this guide keeps them apart. What a register, a gazette entry, an inscription or a dated royal act shows is one thing. What the chronicles and the temple itself hold is another, and it is worth telling as what it is.
The monastery's own account says the king bestowed the name, while the departmental board says it is a corruption of a warning sign put up where the currents were dangerous. Both cannot be true, and the same database prints them side by side without choosing.
Almost everything written in English about Wat Chalo gets it wrong in the same way, so it is worth being exact. There are two ordination halls here. The one on the national register is an ordinary rectangular masonry building about 9.15 by 19.7 metres, and the only thing junk-like about it is its base, which sags in the downward curve that late Ayutthaya builders used everywhere and that Thai calls the junk-hull form. The one everybody photographs is a modern hall in the shape of the Suphannahong — the royal swan barge — begun in B.E. 2526 by the abbot Phra Khru Nonthapanyawimon, who described a vision of a barge floating in front of the old hall. It is not a junk, it is not old, and it is not a registered monument.
What the register does say is short. On 16 May B.E. 2522 the Fine Arts Department's acting director-general signed an announcement under section 7 of the 1961 Act registering the ordination hall of Wat Chalo with about one ngan ninety-seven square wa of ground — some 788 square metres — according to a plan bound in behind it. It was published a month later. The department's own register codes the monument as registered with its land boundary delimited, which is the strongest of the four states it uses, and there is no second entry for the monastery, its chedis, its wall or the barge hall.
The Chinese junk enters this place only as a story, and it is a good one. The monastery's own account, as the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre records it, has King Borommakot travelling upriver by the canal cut, deciding a monastery should stand at that spot, and running into obstacle after obstacle because a junk from China had sunk there with most of its crew and the ground was held to be cursed. He made a vow, and dreamt of an old Chinese man who told him the hall must be built in the shape of a junk to break the jinx. The monastery, the same account says, then lay empty until monks returned in the Third or Fourth Reign. A second legend puts the foundation four centuries earlier under King U Thong. A departmental interpretive board offers a third explanation of the name altogether — a warning sign reading slow, wait, put up where the currents at the canal mouths were dangerous, corrupted over time into Chalo.
Against all of that the archaeological bracket is sobering: the twenty-fourth Buddhist century, 1758 to 1857, which is later than every legendary date on offer. The building has been restored repeatedly, most recently by the department's Suphanburi regional office in B.E. 2556 and 2557, described as following the original form — a phrase that is used both when fabric is conserved and when it is replaced to the old pattern. Whether the curved base standing there now is Ayutthaya fabric, an early Rattanakosin rebuild or a recent reconstruction is not stated anywhere, and it is the question this monument most needs answered.
The registered ordination hall: a rectangular masonry building about 9.15 by 19.7 metres inside a low precinct wall, its base sagging in the junk-hull curve, with an open porch forming a front mukh whose ceiling is red-painted wood with gilt ceiling-stars.
Finials in the form called nok chao — naga shapes with a bird-like beak — on the ridge and eaves, and pediments front, rear and on the porch carved in stucco with a vase-and-foliage motif.
Eight boundary shrines in the howdah form at the eight directions, their sema leaves of red sandstone, with the central front shrine standing inside the porch.
The principal image, a Maravijaya Buddha on a raised pedestal at the rear of the hall. The monastery describes it as red sandstone with a lap width of three sok nine nio; the Sirindhorn record marks the gilding with a question mark of its own. There are no murals in this hall — the walls are bare and the ceiling is red with gold stars.
Two redented chedis standing in front of the hall inside the precinct wall.
The modern Suphannahong barge hall standing in front of the old one, begun in B.E. 2526 and claimed by the monastery to be the largest of its kind — a claim no state source measures or repeats.
A brick wall topped with sema-shaped cresting on the south-east of the grounds, presumed to belong to the old monastery wall and not itself registered.
This is a working place of worship for millions of people rather than an attraction, and it is treated as one at the gate. Where a figure below is blank, no source we are prepared to cite states it.
| Hours | Not established from an official source. |
|---|---|
| Admission | Thai nationals: free. Foreign visitors: 0 baht. |
| Dress | Not established from an official source. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Fronting Bang Kruai–Sai Noi Road in Moo 3, Wat Chalo subdistrict, within Bang Kruai town municipality; the old ordination hall stands almost on the bank of Khlong Bangkok Noi at the western side of the grounds. |
Every temple reference repeats claims nobody has checked. These are the ones we went looking for and could not stand up, listed so you know exactly where this page stops.
No, and this is the commonest error about the place. The registered hall is an ordinary rectangular building whose base curves downward in the junk-hull line that late Ayutthaya builders used generally. It has no prow and no stern in any source consulted.
A modern ordination hall in the form of the Suphannahong royal swan barge, begun in B.E. 2526 by the abbot Phra Khru Nonthapanyawimon and standing in front of the old hall. It is about two and a half centuries younger than the building beside it, it is a swan barge and not a junk, and it is not a registered monument.
Only as a legend. The monastery's own account has a Chinese junk capsizing on the spot with heavy loss of life, the ground held cursed, and King Borommakot dreaming of an old Chinese man who told him the hall must take the junk's form to break the jinx. It explains a curved base; it does not describe a boat-shaped building.
Late Ayutthaya on architectural grounds, with the archaeological bracket given as the twenty-fourth Buddhist century, 1758 to 1857. That bracket is later than all three traditional foundation dates offered for the monastery, which is why this guide states none of them as fact.
No. The walls carry no painting; the ceiling is red with gold stars. Anything claiming murals in this hall is describing some other building.
No. The Department of Tourism records that the monument and the monastery may be visited every day at no charge, with no separate rate for foreign visitors. It publishes no opening and closing times, and neither does the Fine Arts Department.
Before you go, read the guide to Buddhism and temple etiquette in Thailand — dress, footwear, where photography is not welcome and how to behave around monks. The rest of Nonthaburi’s temples are covered here too.
Every temple here sits in a place worth reading about on its own terms. The nationwide temple guide covers the other provinces to the same documentary standard as this page, and says on each one what the record establishes and what it does not.
If you are thinking about more than a visit: work out which Thai visa route fits your situation, and see what is available to rent and buy in residences across Thailand.
Every fact on this page is drawn from the sources above. Where they disagree, this page says so rather than choosing silently. Registrations, fees, hours and access change; confirm anything you are relying on with the authority concerned. BAANLYY LLC is a Nevada company and a listing portal, does not represent any temple, and offers no legal or religious advice.